Original subtitles

Tonight, James May faces trial by water,

Richard Hammond faces trial by fire

and I drive a Ferrari on the Moon.

Hello, good evening.

Thanks very much.

Now, ever since Honda dropped the NSX a couple of years ago,

the Porsche 911 was the only supercar - if you can call it a supercar... Which you can.

..was the only supercar that you could use every day.

And it still is.

No, it isn't. Cos now there's a new kid on the block. No, there isn't.

Audis are mainly built for German cement salesmen.

Not this one, though.

This is the R8.

It's made from a blend of carbon

fibre, magnesium and aluminium.

It has two seats.

The engine's in the middle.

And it's about as high off the ground as a badger's badger.

By any measure, it's a full-on supercar, but, so far as I can tell,

it doesn't have any of the usual supercar drawbacks.

You can see out of it,

for a kick-off.

And it's not powered by some V17 quad turbo

that does half a mile to the gallon and runs on diced lions.

It's actually got the same for 4.2-litre V8 that Audi put in the RS4 saloon.

And would you listen to it!

I am now doing 100 miles an hour and it sounds like I'm in church.

Only I've got more headroom.

And how have they done that?

How can there be so much space in a car that's so low?

How?

I can only presume - and this is a revolting thought, I know - that my buttocks are

actually kissing the cat's eyes.

Not only is it spacious, but it's comfortable as well.

And at £77,000, it costs about half as much as its stepsister,

the Lamborghini Gallardo.

It all sounds brilliant.

But there are one or two issues that are worth mentioning.

Most things on it - leather upholstery, satellite navigation, stainless-steel pedals,

the stereo - in fact, nearly everything is an optional extra.

And I don't think it's a particularly good-looking car.

It's not balanced properly somehow.

And those LED fairy lamps at the

front really don't work at all.

They make it look like a council house at Christmas.

The thing is, though,

you won't care about the headlamps when you open the taps a little bit.

0-60 takes 4.6 seconds.

The top speed is as near as makes no difference, 190.

It's not the speed, though,

that impresses you most of all.

It's the way this thing feels through the corners.

Driving most supercars is like trying to manhandle a cow

up a back staircase.

This is like smearing honey into Kiera Knightley.

It may have four-wheel drive, but it never sends more than a third of

the power to the front wheels.

You don't really ever get any understeer.

And if it does let go, it's just so manageable.

I'm, um... I'm completely sold.

As far as I'm concerned, this car is almost without fault.

It is absolutely stunning.

Rubbish! I'll show you stunning.

This is the best 911 - the Carrera 2S.

It costs about the same as the Audi and will now run four rings round it.

Ah, Richard Hammond appears to have joined us in his Volkswagen Beetle.

You wanna play? Right.

Small suspension on,

traction control off.

Here goes!

The thing is with that Audi - you're just not as involved in the drive.

It's like he's back at base pushing plastic pieces around on

a table. And in this, I'm in the front line, getting stuck in.

He's probably rabbiting on in there about how he feels an organic part of the machine.

But the simple fact is, he's behind me.

Obviously, through the corners, I have the four-wheel drive grip,

and then on the straights, his miserable flat six is no match for this V8 tower of power.

Hold on. I think his engine's broken.

I can't hear it.

It's almost silent. What's the point of having a supercar that doesn't shout about it?

My driving letting us down there.

Mind you, Hammond's driving also letting him down.

Fearing that this would end up in a crash and a fireball, we pulled over

for an argument.

Now, come on! No, and it's not just about the result.

It's about the sensation along the way.

The problem with this, mate, is they put the engine in the back, OK?

Wrong place. No.

Horse and cart. I know - let's put the horse at the back.

So, in your case, they put the horse in the middle, in the cart. Yes, but it's balanced.

No, that is one of the defining characteristics of that car. What?

Well, it defines the shape, which is incredibly aerodynamic.

And the packaging means, with the engine behind the rear wheels, you've got room for another set of seats.

Why do you want seats in the back?

I took the kids to school in that this morning and drove straight here.

Well, I didn't, so who's the daddy now?

I said, "Kids, you'll have to go with your mother cos I've got no

seats." "He's got silly grey bits!"

Having resolved nothing, we decided to settle it intelligently...

with a half-mile drag race.

Well, I've got about 70 brake horsepower less, but it's lighter.

His four-wheel drive will bog down off the line.

I really want to win this cos

I really, really like this car.

I mean, a lot.

I've got the engine on the rear wheels, so I've got the advantage in traction.

I'm confident...ish.

I am ahead, clearly.

He's definitely got better traction off the line.

Can't see him. Where is he?

120, here we go.

Oh, no! Oh, no!

Come on, come on, come on!

Who won?

I've no idea.

Aha.

Now... Now...

I don't know. Neither do I,

but we're going to find out. Can we see a slow-motion replay

of that finish, please? Here we go.

Oh, yes!

Clearly No! No!

No!

Oh, no, no, you lost. That is an "L" for loser.

But very soon, there's gonna be a V10 version of this.

Not the Lambo V10, Audi's own.

Then, a-ha. I wouldn't hold your breath. Why?

Did you hear what happened to the prototype? We have a photograph of it here.

That's on fire.

It's just steam. Really? Yes.

Would you like to see what happened once they'd put the steam out? Yeah.

There's the car after they put the steam out. Oh, that's steamed, isn't

it? It's steamed! Yes,

well steamed. Can we get on? No, I'm going to settle this once and for all. I'll put it to the audience.

I'm gonna hold a general election right here, right now.

Are you sure that's a good idea?

This is a very popular car.

There's a £30,000 premium on these. You go ahead if you want.

Actually, no, I've suddenly decided that a general election right now is a stupid idea because I might lose.

Why don't you just stay where you are and nick all my ideas?

That's a good idea. In fact, it was my idea to do just that.

Brilliant car. I've said that from the start.

We must now find out how fast this goes round our track,

and that means handing it over to our tame racing driver.

Some say that he's banned from the town of Chichester

and that in a recent late-night deal,

he bought a slightly dented white Fiat Uno from the Duke of Edinburgh.

All we know is he's called the Stig.

And he's off. The track is looking a bit damp today.

I hope that won't hurt the time as he powers down to the first corner.

Lights twinkling like a Woolworth's sale. Very smooth, very flat. Lovely!

Remember, that you are always in control.

No feelings of tension, irritability...

Stig seems to have got himself some self-help CDs as he flicks it beautifully through Chicago Chassis.

Sublime. Let's see how it copes with Hammerhead.

Slow in, then back on the power.

No real drama at all!

In these conditions, it's just excellent.

Be aware only of yourself and have no concern for the thoughts or expectations of your partner.

Straight through the follow-through, no problem there.

Same engine as the magnificent RS4.

So much more nimble. Dances through the tyre wall. Two corners left.

Staying level and focused. There isn't a single moment's drama in it.

The apex, and there he is, across the line.

Earlier today,

the Stig, OK, he took the Porsche round so they could get a time for that.

We have some footage of it coming up to the second to last corner.

What you make of this, Richard? Very good, very good.

Strong stuff, as I'd expect. Ah!

No! Well, it's my idea to say, as I've always said,

the engine is in the wrong place in a Porsche and that was...

It was never my idea that you'd stolen that. It wasn't.

Well, he did it in 1 minute 26.2 seconds.

Then he went out in the Audi.

1 minute 24.4 seconds.

I predicted that from the start, obviously.

Will you now admit that that is a better car?

Yes. Yes!

Yeah, yeah, I know...

And now the news.

I'm afraid we begin with an apology.

We are unable to bring you Jeremy's road test of a Ferrari on the moon.

Unfortunately, we've had a call from the BBC Director-General -

he said he had one or two issues with it.

I think it was the bit at the end

when the Queen stormed off the moon.

No, actually, the Queen walked on to the moon. No, she stormed off it.

It wasn't faked in any way. We don't fake things. Hey, now,

McLaren are working on a new supercar.

Given what's happened in Formula One this year, we've speculated on

what that will look like.

Yes, yes.

That's a 430 Scuderia. It is.

That's a new version of the 430 and it's lighter than the standard car.

Bit faster. It has a floppy paddle gear box on it, but it changes gear even faster.

That's great, but it costs £28,000 more than a standard 430.

It brings us back to the lightweight supercars we reviewed last week

because what annoys me is that you buy a Ferrari 430 thinking this is as good as Ferrari can make a car.

A couple of minutes later, they say, no, this is. But it costs an extra 28,000. Give us another £28,000,

you'll have a car as good as we can make it.

I think it's like that Sainsbury's taste-the-difference cheese.

LAUGHTER

Hold on a minute. No, it's not like cheese.

That's not cheese. But this is an analogy.

You go to Sainsbury's and you see cheese that costs a certain amount,

but next to it, taste-the-difference cheese is more expensive, but tastes really nice. The bachelor life.

But why don't they just make all the cheese like that? Do they just make

something that's a bit worse,

price it lower, and say, "Here's

rubbish cheese for poor people!"?

I'm confused. Why are you on this programme? I'm right, aren't I?

Why would you deliberately make cheese less good than you can make it? I don't care about the cheese!

It's a Ferrari! They deliberately made the F430 less good than they know it can be!

They bring out a more expensive one, put taste-the-difference on it, and sell it in Sainsbury's.

Now you've confused yourself, you poor old goat!

I'm moving it on. James has plainly gone quite mad. We're getting back to cars.

There's a new Mini estate car. They're calling it the Clubman.

It has five doors.

But they're not where you might expect. We have a picture here.

Two at the back - when you close those, there's a big line down

the centre of the car.

Then, you get two on this side and one on the other.

And you can tell it's German. How?

Because if you pull up in Germany with that, OK, to let your children out of the back,

they're on the kerb, but they don't switch it round for right-hand-drive.

In Britain, if you opened the back door to let the children out they're in the middle of the road.

So British children are less important than German children.

It's the advertising slogan for that car. Is it? No.

I think that's a bit like Tesco's own-brand beans. There you go!

Yes, mate, you sit in your armchair, love. They'll be round in a bit.

Love?!

Shall we get on? Fifth Gear news.

You know we revealed last week that they burned our furniture,

well, it turned out that this week, one of the presenters caught fire.

Jason Potato. Plato.

Well, actually, Bains-Potato now.

LAUGHTER

He was belting down the runway. His car caught fire. He was quite badly injured.

He had to go to hospital. He burnt his hand and his face.

We wish him a speedy recovery, but I'd like to say, thank you, God.

Well, it's a Sunday show. He likes Top Gear more.

Yes, God's on our side.

He sent his son along this week.

Look. Jesus has come.

Has amongst us.

The son of God does not go to Fifth Gear. He doesn't. That's never been said before.

Now, we have a new car from America launched this week.

It's called the SSC Ultimate Aero.

There it is. 1,183 horsepower.

Nought to 60, 2.8 seconds.

This week, it set the fastest ever speed for a road-legal car.

256 miles an hour. Can you believe that?!

They say the body is solely carbon fibre and weighs 131 pounds,

if you don't count the doors, bonnet and the boot.

I weigh 131 pounds if you don't

count my arms and legs and head!

It also says it has a completely flat belly.

The only thing in America that has.

Hang on, we mustn't mock the Americans too much.

Credit where it's due, they've done

it. It is the fastest production car in the world.

I bet this is rubbish. Why? I bet it is because the man who did the speed run in it was 71 years old.

Yeah, but that just proves how easy it is to drive. No, it shows they didn't have that much faith in it.

I mean, what did the advert say? "Wanted, elderly widower to drive

a car we're not sure about.

"Must have not much else to live for." Oh!

That won't be as good as a Bugatti.

I'm telling you now. It won't be as good.

I've got a thing from a company that makes brake discs and brake pads and things.

They're urging us to check our brakes and make sure they're working properly

because according to statistics from the Department of Transport, one in

three accidents happens

because a vehicle fails to stop in time. I thought it was actually ALL accidents.

Lewis Hamilton.

What? He had an accident because he didn't stop in time.

Did you see it last weekend? Yes. Did you see it?

No. Why weren't you watching?

Well, don't have a go, neither was he by the sound of it. He crashed...

His tyres had gone. And then it got much worse for him.

We found this on the internet.

Stopped for petrol on the way home.

Oh, bad day all round, eh?

We have the most important piece

of news ever.

I know you probably imagine we go to wild parties all week.

This week, we went on the internet and found this Porsche design website.

It's full of all the stuff you'd

expect - briefcases, wallets, pens that you can buy for three quid

anywhere else, but because they have Porsche written on them, they're £3.5 million each.

Complete rubbish.

We went into smoking tools and we discovered...

For the Porsche enthusiast... Boy,

have you got to be an enthusiast!

A Porsche-designed pipe.

These are real, genuine. They cost quite a lot of money, but they come in four different colours and styles.

I spun off in my Porsche!

Mine won't start properly.

Of course, it will.

It's a Porsche. Persevere!

No, what are you doing, man?!

Other end!

It's a 911 Porsche, the hot bit goes at the back.

You don't look right with that.

Have you noticed, over my shoulder...

Look at him.

The chair, the pipe, we're building up the perfect picture for you, mate.

I'll tell you something... You see, he's pointing!

I haven't actually got anything to tell you, but I just wanted

to point at you with my pipe.

Ugh!

That's not gone well.

Jeremy, Hold on. Jeremy...

APPLAUSE

Can I just get quite clear, what you just did, as a grown man,

was light a pipe and put the wrong end of it in your mouth?

What are you like on Bonfire Night?!

You bloody idiot! That isn't the end of the news, but we are ending it there.

It's time now to move on.

A couple of years ago, the three of us were asked to make

amphibious cars and, if we're honest, it didn't go all that well.

James's Herald was pretty good on the water,

but there were problems on land.

Oh, cock! Richard's camper van was rubbish on land, and then even more rubbish in the water. It's going!

My toy boater, on the other hand, was brilliant everywhere,

right up to the moment when it, um, rolled over.

Now, that is pretty much par for the course on Top Gear.

We're always setting ourselves ambitious targets,

asking how hard can it be to make a convertible people-carrier, or turn

a Fiat Panda into a stretch limo And everything always ends up either broken in half or on fire or sunk.

And then, we give up and move on.

But with amphibious cars, the producer said we had to try again.

They said no more fooling about, we had to concentrate.

We were told to refine our original ideas and then meet

in a car park near Sidcup, which is just outside London on the M24.

5. M5. 25.

Jeremy was the first to arrive.

There we are. Now, obviously,

my original plan of simply bolting a very large outboard engine to

the back of a pick-up truck worked very well.

Until it rolled over.

To prevent that happening again,

I've welded up the doors much more thoroughly -

that should stop water getting into the cockpit and sloshing from side to side.

In the back, I've fitted these big drums, which, when I go in the water,

I simply lower them like this, so they're like stabilisers on a child's bicycle.

That should give me more, um, um...

um...

em...

Stability. Yes, that.

Next, Hammond arrived.

Now, you see, Hammond... Yes?

What you've done there, mate,

is you've parked a van on top of a boat.

No, it's brilliant. Let me tell you, it is a refinement of the theory.

Check it out, flying bridge, completely equipped.

It's not a flying bridge. More-or-less. This is where the girls go.

Up here, in bikinis. Richard,

I have already seen the problem. Would you like to step down. Yes.

Stand at the wheel. Look ahead. Yeah, that is an issue.

I need a sailing box.

As before, Richard had stuck with the cabin cruiser principle.

And, as before, to make it move in the water,

he'd simply fixed a propeller to the Volkswagen's rear-mounted engine.

So, as you're driving down the road, this propeller is turning? A bit.

Have you rung the highways department... Yes. ..and told them you're driving a car with,

effectively, a blender on the back? 'And there was another issue.' This is your hull. Yes.

These are holes in it. Fibreglass.

Yes, that's for the wheels.

I've seen Titanic. It got a hole in it. It sank.

Well, I've sealed them around the arch with foam.

So if Titanic had been filled with foam, it would've been here today?

But they didn't know that. Technology - you can't knock them for that.

Fibreglass hull, predominantly. Barely tips the scales at over five tons. And the cooling? Yeah, yeah.

'Jeremy then showed off HIS handiwork.' You've set fire to it by the looks of it.

There was a small fire. The welding.

And then, while waiting for James...

Oh, again, ambitious. You're thinking of what to occupy yourself with

whilst on the water.

Whilst YOU sink again. No, not this time.

It will. It won't.

It will. It just won't.

Some time, much later, James arrived in a flurry of deja-vu.

It's the same vehicle. The same car.

Well, not exactly. Exactly the same car.

It is the same car. The reason for that is, my car, if you remember,

worked. It didn't.

It did. Every time you got to a low bridge, your mast was... Ah! Now, I have a collapsible mast.

And I have a spinnaker and I also have a keel-come-centre-board.

How did you get that underneath here?

You drop it down through the slot, like on a dinghy.

That's a whopper! Have you seen this? That's where the water will be.

The water will simply... What's the word? ..come through there.

You'll sink before you put your bit of wood in. No, it won't. I have calculated it using Archimedes.

When a body is wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, it experiences

a thrust equal in magnitude to the mass of the fluid displaced.

This won't work.

'We'd soon find out.'

Thank you so much. Here's our challenge. Come on, then.

Is it bad? Yes.

No, really bad. Go on.

You will now drive to...Dover.

No. Not...

And then you will cross the Channel to France.

That's just... What is it? What is

it? 22 miles? He's not making it up.

Mine won't do that.

If I'd known it was the sea, I'd have fitted a bigger anchor. This is not really a sea-going anchor.

And a longer chain. Yeah, I'm not going to need that. That will sink at around 30 feet.

I'm not sure. I reckon mine... We're all going to be killed.

No, we're not. Mine is essentially a dingy and dinghies sail across the Channel every day.

I'm 47 years old. I'm going to be

run down by a Korean grain carrier, minced...

Yeah, but what a day!

Before we could set off, James had to take down his new collapsible mast.

Oh, timber! Oh, my God!

That's the lamp.

France, here we come.

What's it actually caught on? The security camera.

Would you admit that your design is already flawed?

No.

Finally, we were on the road and it soon became clear that all

the additions had taken the edge

off my performance.

AGH-AGH-AGH!

Why was I hurrying?

I'm just going to ring a solicitor, do my last will and testament,

leave everything to the lifeboat people.

I can't believe they're asking us to go across the Channel.

I'm following Jeremy's pick-up and it looks like a man with a pick-up

who's stolen an outboard motor and a couple of oil drums on the way to a fishing trip.

James, as usual, had fallen behind.

But otherwise, all was well in his world.

This is fantastic. I absolutely cannot wait to try out my Triumph

Herald in its newly re-rigged form and sail across the Channel.

Why shouldn't it work?

I had just one crumb of comfort.

This time, mine was working on the road, but then, the crumb went away.

Oh...!

Unfortunately, solving the not-floating problem with foam means you get another one - choking.

Then, Jeremy arrived.

Hammond is being killed and mine...

Well, it's hard to know, is that smoke or...?

# And we jolly sailor boys were... #

Well done. Oh, dear!

Yeah, what you've done

is fill your engine bay with foam.

Hold on a minute. And then, what it's done is catch fire.

How's your engine? Ruined.

Every single thing we do...

James isn't even here.

I don't know.

Hoping that the hot exhaust would burn away all the foam without it

becoming a big ruinous fire, we pressed on. Oh, God!

They are worse than they were last time on the road and we've got a much bigger challenge on the water.

Mind you, after five miles, Hammond was beyond caring.

It is like the West Indian dope-smoking team practising in the car.

Hello.

Eventually, the excess foam did burn off and soon we arrived in Dover.

People are looking. Yeah! One day, they're going to want one.

We would be launching from the slipway once used by the giant cross-Channel hovercrafts.

Spread before it was Dover harbour and beyond the safety of its walls,

22 miles of English Channel,

the busiest shipping lane in the world.

The fishing rods!

'Amazingly, the only things that did actually break on the Nissan's journey to Dover

'were all its brakes.'

I'm telling you, James, I cannot stop it.

I can't stop it. 'By the time James had fixed his rudder, we were running late.

'And the tide was coming in.'

It's ten to eight. Yeah.

It's 22 miles.

If mine works, that's 25 minutes.

How fast do you think it goes? 40 knots. Get off!

Have you seen the size of the engine on the back of it? Your top speed?

Very slow. Four knots.

Yeah. And there's a three-knot tide.

It's a mile an hour. Yeah.

And you? 20 knots.

No, James. Look, the point is, I'm the only one with even a vague hope of getting there before nightfall.

Why don't we just go when the tide's going out? Then it'll help us.

That's a good idea. That's tomorrow.

No, slack water. Or slack water, yeah.

Slack water is tomorrow at one o'clock. We shall go then! Yes!

We'll go to the pub now. Sound idea.

And then tomorrow, one o'clock, that will be us at slack water.

Because the water is slack.

What's slack water?

APPLAUSE

Honestly, crossing the Channel has got to be just about the stupidest idea ever.

You had the sense that, "I'm going to end up today with hyperthermia

attached to a stomach pump."

We were all so paranoid about sinking,

that's why we put all that foam everywhere to make them float better.

We wrapped it round the manifold, round the exhaust, round the engine,

round anywhere really hot, basically, which is why there was all that smoke pouring out.

Anyway, it's now time to put a star in our reasonably priced car.

My guest tonight was once suspended from Channel 4 for using the F-word

on live television before the watershed.

I mean, for BLEEP's sake!

Ladies and gentlemen, Jools Holland.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

Oh, this is something! Oh, lovely to see you.

It's like Richard Hammond, so small and dinky. Have a seat.

Thank you very much. I shall.

Now, you're the SIZE of Richard Hammond.

Yes. But looking into your past life,

old British motor bikes, you play the piano, you view foreign food

with suspicion, you say people shouldn't go abroad on holiday

but should spend it in the shed.

Separated at birth, I think, from James May.

What a lovely fellow he is. What a talented and great mind that man has.

It's very hard, though, for me to reconcile these views with how I first remember seeing you

on the Tube, which was, of course, complete anarchy. Well, that was in early happy days.

In many ways, that was the first time that television was put into the hands of the lunatics.

Now things have changed.

That was the first time it happened.

We made it up as we went along and it was live and it was Friday, it was 5.30pm, the pubs were open.

You had to do all interviews in a minute. That was the other thing.

Because it was youth television, I suppose,

they thought everybody's attention span was that long.

We only had a minute to do anything.

We had Miles Davis, one of the great jazz legends of all time,

and he was promoting his drawings.

They said, "You've got a minute to interview him."

I said, "But he's one of the biggest names in jazz ever. I said, "Surely...

"Surely he's worth more than a minute."

They said, "All right, you can have a minute and 20."

So I sat and I said to him, "Well, Mr Davis..." - he's just got these great sort of sunglasses.

I said, "Would you connect your art to your music?" He said, "Hmm...

"Would I connect my art to my music?"

Ooh, the pain!

"Yeah.

"That's a good question."

I'm thinking... I don't want to interrupt. And he said,

"WOULD I connect my art to my music?"

"Good."

And then the woman behind... They're probably doing it now cos it's such a long story!

They go like this. She's going...

It's going down to no time at all. Then it's like this, and he said,

"Yeah."

30 years ago, you were with Squeeze, which was part of the punk era.

Do you miss the gobbing?

If this was 1978, they would just be spitting on us. It would be a hailstorm. Yes,

but honestly, it was a compliment at the time. It was. Feel free to goz on us.

That was back in the day.

But then our manager, Miles Copeland, he said, to ingratiate yourself with anybody doing that,

he said there's some beer by the stage. Why not hand

tins of beer out?

So we did that and then they chucked the empty cans at us.

You even met Joey Ramone. Does anyone here know who that is?

Yes. One person and that's enough because this is the BBC.

We're not going for ratings, we're going for the one man over there.

What was he like?

We were playing in this club called CBGB's which was a fantastic punk club.

After we finished, he said, "Do you want to come down to this club?"

A very nice place called KZ's.

We went there and I have never been anywhere like it before or since.

In every room, there was an orgy or...

drug-taking or some sort of absurd scenes. It was like a strange film of Caligula or something.

Anyway, I was standing there talking to one of the Ramones.

I looked down and I was very surprised to see that there was

one of the womenfolk of New York performing an act upon his person.

Do you know, he rather lost interest in what I was saying!

Unfortunately, we must now stop. No, we mustn't. I tell you something, you've this new album out.

Well, it's got a lot of the best of the collaborations that we've done.

We've got a clip of it. Oh, my word. Just to show you how many people

this guy plays with.

Sorry about the telly.

# Tell me, where have all the good guys gone?

# And you can take a horse to the water

# But you can't make him drink

# Oh, no

# Oh, no... #

That's everybody.

My only regret is that you're not there playing the drums.

There would've been people wrapping their keyboards round my neck

if I'd been trying to keep time. Now, cars. Motors,

now you're talking. The thing

that fascinates me most about your cars is that I heard that

you choose a car on how it smells.

Oh, very important. For instance, I've got an Austin Westminster bought entirely because of its smell.

1965, as used by the police.

I don't know how they ever caught anybody in it.

You wind down the window just this much and then...

Law and order, 1965. It's beautiful!

That's what it smells of? Exactly.

What other cars have you got? I have an old Aston Martin.

They're quite fun.

You've got an E-type. Yes.

I've always liked Jags.

I thought Jags were so wonderful to drive.

The V12 Jag engine is, to this day, the smoothest engine that

there has ever been. I've done the thrupenny bit test on all of them.

You get the thrupenny bit, you place it on top of the engine.

This is not rhyming slang now.

That's right! Oh, it matters little.

What an amazing thing to do!

Whatever comes to hand. What a test.

It'll stand there and you can rev it up, and it doesn't bat an eyelid.

You're a member of a great many classic car clubs, as I understand.

Let's see now. Well, the E-type Club, of course. You know, Philip Porter.

The Rolls-Royce enthusiasts. The Bentley Drivers' Club. Very good

for spare parts. You can get a Bentley Drivers' Club dressing-gown

which you can only... You can get a Porsche pipe!

Only recognisable by another Bentley Drivers' Club person if you're in dressing gowns together.

That's a real worry! I must introduce you. You must come out with us one evening.

Come along to one of our Noggins and Natters and cheese niblet evenings we have.

Anyway, listen. Your lap.

Your first attempt, not that good.

Who would like to see of his very first attempt at a lap?

Let's have a look at this.

Coming out to the first corner, a lot of speed being carried

in that I would say. Yes.

I just thought...

I just like the way you kept going

cos actually I don't think the brake lights went on.

There didn't seem any... Can we

can play that again? No, look!

This is fine! Let's get out of here, exactly.

I'm very much built for comfort, not for speed.

I have to say that any man who drives with that kind of enthusiasm and bravery,

we'll possibly get a good lap. Well, I don't know, I was rather nervous.

Good. Shall we have a look at the lap?

ALL: Yeah. Here we go, play the tape.

TYRES SCREECH

It's a good aggressive start.

I want to see the first corner. Did you learn your lesson?

Yeah... Oh, it's still pretty quick.

Oh no, braking in there, that was quite brave...

Oh, BLEEP!

Just said that before the watershed.

I'd forgotten I was being mic-ed up in there.

Did you like the car? It was fantastic. What a car!

Isn't it? Yeah. Wait, there's a gear there somewhere. Somewhere exactly.

Ha-ha, we saw you looking.

And into the Hammerhead. The Hammerhead, yes.

That's very good. That's excellent.

That's a properly good line through there. Well...

Now coming up to the follow-through.

Were you flat out?

That was quite frightening. It is.

And through the tyres.

Yes, it's looking good.

That's the second-to-last corner, most people get it wrong.

You've held it on nicely. Coming up to the last corner...

And there we are, across the line!

Now, where do you think you came on the Board Of Shame?

The Board Of Shame where I've always dreamed of being.

This is the keyboard man.

I think my birthday's around the same time as him so I'll put myself in keyboard corner there.

Keyboard corner? No, you're way faster than that. Oh.

I'm delighted to say you did it in 1.49.09. Oh! Ladies and gentlemen,

that is a quick time.

There!

Not... Surely...surely not faster than Steve Coogan.

Faster than Steve Coogan, that's a very good time. Anyway, it's been just great fun having you.

It's been lovely here. Squeeze, The Tube and music, and cars as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jools Holland! Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, that's great.

OK, now back to tonight's big challenge.

The three of us have built amphibious cars.

We've driven them down to Dover with only one or two small fires

to contend with on the way.

When we left the action we were preparing to sail them across The Channel to France.

Last time we tried amphibious cars, we were flummoxed by a small reservoir in Staffordshire.

This time we faced not just 22 miles of open sea, but the busiest shipping lane in the world.

Nevertheless, we were due to set sail at something called Slack Water.

It was lovely morning and the sea inside the harbour was calm and inviting.

Outside the harbour though...

Despite the roughness, Captain Cocksure was supremely confident

in his engineering, and eager to get going.

Hammond and I, however, weren't.

Have you ever considered the meaning of life?

No, but I think we should.

And now's the time. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I've checked it for water tightness and got all the sheets,

which is the correct nautical term for these pieces of string, in the right position.

It is all shipshape and ready to go.

How many grains of sugar are there? That's exactly what I would...

We say blindly, "I'll have one sugar."

How many are there? One. Yeah.

Two.

118. Two.

119.

Three. Have you started again?

Yeah, I lost count. I want to get it right.

We have to go.

HOOTER BLARES

That thing's gonna leave, then the harbour's empty. I want to go.

'Finally they arrived back.' You're two and three quarter hours late! No.

A lot of stuff to do. Slack water is in...

Now. In the sea.

Listen, before we set off, I've just got...

a few more things to do.

The night before while a bit drunk I'd stuck hydrofoil bin lids

to the side of my pick-up and I needed to make sure

the glue had set.

But James wouldn't wait.

Right, I'm going.

He's going. He's off. He's going. He's doing it.

It's a car! It's still a car.

It's a...boat?

Sail, jib sail.

You're coming back now, it's a car again.

Centreboard.

He's got no rudder. It's that way.

He's got no rudder in the water.

Oh, yeah.

And Dame Ellen May had another problem.

The centreboard's stuck.

He's got further that way than he has that way.

I'm enjoying this. I was

so preoccupied with my centreboard,

I wasn't looking where I was going.

Oh, my, he's gonna hit the pier.

Here comes the rescue boat. He's been rescued after...

a minute and a half.

It's so unfair!

The rescue boat nudged me back to open water

where I discovered my Archimedes calculations were a bit out.

I would say that car's sinking as well. Mayday!

He's going down, I think we should get in there.

This can only go well.

Here we go.

Oh, yeah!

Once again, the pick-up truck is working.

Yes!

It works! I am floating!

Amazingly, all three of us were floating.

Well, when I say three...

It's going down.

Richard offered to pick James up

but he had a problem.

You can't stop.

No, I can't stop the engine.

See you then! Oh, bloody hell!

Do you want to come on this boat?

Up to a point, yes. Will you admit

it's a brilliant piece of design.

No. Bugger off.

Goodbye!

Richard and I returned to land because we wanted to be there

to offer James reassurance and sympathy.

You designed a rubbish car and you know nothing about sailing.

Amazingly, however, James insisted that his Herald

and the snapped mast could be fixed and so, with help

from me and Jeremy...

two hours later, he was back in business.

Here we go. Let's go!

This is absolutely brilliant.

I'm actually using my weight to counter the roll of the craft.

CLUNK

Ow!

Is that your top speed?

I'm flat out.

Even so, I was a lot faster than James.

So Jeremy and I left him behind

and pretty soon we were at the mouth of the harbour, facing the open sea.

That's choppy out there.

I can't do that. Not in a van!

Mate, it's horrible!

Maybe if we snuck up on it... Yeah.

Sneak up on the sea!

That's brilliant.

Meanwhile, back with Captain Pugwash...

Sod it!

Right now, sail.

Ow!

HE SCREAMS

We were leaving the harbour. You can't see what's coming, I can!

I can just see sky, sea, sky, sea...

Whoa!

My God, this is big now.

Quite scared. Quite scared.

Quite...really scared.

Why the bloody hell won't it turn round?

Ow! BLEEP thing.

Whoa, it's coming through the sun roof. I'm gonna try and turn.

Bloody hell!

Oh!

These are quite big. Don't like that.

Don't turn on a wave!

Wait...or something.

I don't know, I got scared.

Oh, my God. Agh!

No, no, no...

In seas like this, and with my puny power,

I bravely decided to head back to the harbour.

Then Jeremy bravely followed suit.

Mayday!

Ow!

Is it not working well, James? Have you ever heard of the milk

of human kindness?

Well, prepare to suckle on it.

Thank you.

CHEERING

Sorry, mate.

As Jeremy rescued James, I realised that the big seas had damaged my precious craft.

My steering's broken.

I just go in faster circles.

I was stuck in the entrance to the harbour.

HOOT!

Oh my God, there is the Seacat.

He can move.

HORN BLARES

But he continued on course and now James was a sitting duck as well.

No time to lose. What do you want me to do?

Just nudge the front gently back to port.

I can't get in!

Come on, onto the helm, you bitch!

I can't do gently. That's not round, that's backwards, you pillock.

I don't want to go that way now!

Go left!

'And then...'

Oh, not another one.

BLEEP!

HOOTER BLARES

'Never in maritime history has

a ship had to dodge so much flotsam and jetsam while coming into Dover.'

Sorry, it was him. Sorry. Sorry.

'And this made us be in trouble.'

SIREN WAILS

Morning, officer.

Yeah, fine thank you, everything is under control.

'We were ordered back to land, but getting there wasn't easy.'

Mate, my engine is letting go.

It's dying. There's no doubt about it.

'The Herald was towed back...again.'

Gently!

'And I pulled Richard in.'

That's humiliating.

So we set out for France, twice?

Yeah.

And... We made Dover.

James's boat was now beyond repair.

But, luckily, Jeremy was on hand

to comfort him.

You failed!

Thank you!

Further attempt, here we go.

Today the wind had dropped and the sea was much calmer.

We're going to France this time,

we are going.

'I was now powered by an outboard I'd bought from Jeremy

'for a million pounds, and James was my cabin boy.'

If you'd go below, please, cabin

boy, and a cup of tea. Right, sir.

Oi, Prescott!

I'll have a bacon sandwich.

Richard's million-pound outboard

wasn't exactly gutsy,

so, in the spirit of the sea and in keeping of the maritime code,

I gunned it and left them behind.

Oh, she's riding the waves like a twig.

Meanwhile, back on the cabin cruiser...

Bloody hell!

Mate? What? There's quite a lot of water, it's up to... Not again.

As you can see this morning the sea is a mill pond.

We hope to capitalise on that and make good progress

before the waves build up, which they inevitably will.

This is the third time I've been in this ruddy sea. Yeah.

Technically, it wasn't my fault.

I'm disappointed, I thought we were gonna make it. Sorry, mate, the cup sank.

With typical good grace,

Jeremy came back to pick us up

and then announced we'd have to go back to Dover.

This seemed like a waste of time, but as we lined up for our fourth

attempt his reasoning became clear.

A couple of years ago Richard Branson set a record for crossing The Channel in an amphibious car.

One hour, 40 minutes, six seconds.

And? No way!

It's an average speed of 10.8 knots.

So we go for it, we give it a shot?

In Calais for lunch. Beardy, you're going down.

Guys, can I ask one question.

What? Where's France?

We follow the ferry, but not the one going to Holland.

Soon the three men in a boat were an incredible two miles from England.

Since we were going for a record, we had to work out our speed.

This is our speedometer. We've tied knots in a rope, you throw it in

and you see how many pass through your fingers in a given time.

'It's a very accurate system.'

Captain, about 110 knots.

110, what's that in miles an hour?

125.

Because we were blasting along at a steady 125mph,

we had a visit from the coastguard.

This is the UK coastguard aircraft, please state your intentions.

Our intentions are to go across The Channel faster than beardy Branson.

In that case, I wish you good luck and bon voyage.

I want to do that for a job! That's brilliant

and then all you do is jump out and wrestle Albanians.

Amazingly, our vessel ploughed on without mishap and then...

Land ahoy!

France!

We can see France

from our pick-up truck.

Mind you, Jeremy, do you want to be depressed? What? Look at England.

Boldly going further than any pick-up had gone before we were soon in the shipping lanes.

Bloody hell, what do we do now?

I can't remember whose right of way it is.

That's on a constant bearing as well,

which means we're gonna hit it.

Oh, God, no!

Do you reckon I'll maybe go behind it? Yeah, I'd go behind it.

Yeah, yeah, I think behind it is best.

Having missed all the big, scary boats we turned our attention

back to Branson's record.

Ready, ready, one hour 40 minutes coming up...now.

We've failed. We lost.

Now it was just a question of seeing if we could make it,

but with eight miles to go it started to get choppy.

We're going down, boys. No!

It's pouring in!

Oh my God, look in there now.

I don't like that!

We're in big trouble!

I don't like this!

'Things were even worse at the back.'

We're taking on a hell of a lot of water.

'So we sent James to the front to act as ballast.'

I'm getting a bit bored with sinking,

frankly.

Mercifully as we got into the lee or something or other,

the waters calmed and we could taste success.

The town of Sangatte was about to get three more immigrants.

Never mind that we'd aimed for Calais and missed. France is France.

Come on! Come on! We're 20 yards from France.

To succeed, we had to get up the boat ramp,

but that meant going through the breakers.

No!

Where's that come from?

'I really thought we were gonna tip over.'

We're on the rocks.

We're going up the beach now.

'Skilfully, James got a rope round the front bumper

'and then, a gap in the waves, I went for it.'

No!

That's good.

'The pick-up had landed.' Merci bien.

Finally...

Finally, we got something right!

Can you believe it.

We got something right. Hang on a minute, though.

We made this chart of Channel-crossing solutions

and ours doesn't come out that well to be honest.

Let's look at the cost, first of all.

The tunnel costs £120.

The ferry £40.

Our amphibious vehicles,

just under £19,000.

This is a good point, well made. It gets worse.

Let's look at the time taken. On the tunnel, 35 minutes.

On the ferry, 90 minutes.

For the amphibious vehicles, that just about 4½ days.

Yes, but the beauty of the amphibious vehicle here is that you can reuse it.

In just...120 crossings it would pay for itself.

But the thing is, Jeremy, at 4½ days per crossing,

to do 120 crossings,

you'd have to do nothing other than go backwards and forwards across The Channel

for a year and a half before it's paid for itself.

Another good point. And, as we've proved,

you've got a two-in-three chance of sinking anyway.

So what we're saying is we've once again been ambitious, but rubbish.

That's what we're saying. Yeah.

On that bombshell, it's time to end the show.

We won't see you next week because

some drunk men are playing billiards

but we'll see you the week after that. Thanks for watching. Goodnight.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk